1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns improvements in tractor vehicles through the unique arrangement of drive line components resulting in significant handling and performance benefits. Specifically, a tractor vehicle is provided that has an engine mounted over, or alternatively in front of, the front axle of a two axle vehicle. An air circulating fan draws air from midship louvers through an upright transverse heat exchanger, located between the tractor firewall and the tractor engine, and past the vehicle engine to exit from the front grille area of the tractor.
A fuel tank may be mounted in front of the firewall and shaped to improve air flow to the heat exchanger. The fuel tank also serves as a noise barrier between the engine and the operator's compartment.
A drive shaft is interposed between the forward mounted engine and the transmission and differential located at the rear of the vehicle. The master clutch remains in the clutch housing portion of the transmission at the rear of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Contemporary non-articulated tractor vehicles owe their sophistication to a wide range of add on accessory equipment that transforms the decades old tractor design to the tractor farmers depend on today. The basic tractor concept is becoming unwieldy however, on cost, waste, and efficiency fronts when it burdened with a need to accommodate thousands of pounds of necessary accessories.
As expected the weight, balance and basic stability of contempory tractors has been affected through the addition of weight over the tractor's rear axle. Dual rear wheels, heavier axles, differentials, transmissions, brakes, larger fuel tanks, environmental cabs and heavier hitches have added to the weight at the rear of the tractor while only relatively minimal functional equipment weight has been added to the front of the tractor. This contradicts good weight distribution practices and precipitates the need for larger quantities of ballast overhanging the front of the tractor. Excess non-functional weight is expensive, inefficient, and cumbersome and it increases the overall non-functional length of the tractor.
As tractor horsepower increases both fuel consumption and noise generation increase, engine accessory noise emanates from immediately in front of the tractor operator and is blocked only by the firewall of the vehicle. Current tractors depend on heavily insulated cabs to combat this problem.
Fuel tank capacity on workable size non-articulated tractors is at its maximum now. Capacity increases are now only functions of intricate molded tanks that fit into broken up spaces and auxiliary tanks that interfere with tractor mobility. Tank size and location on some models also interfers with visibility to the hitch.
Other current tractor designs result in underhood conjestion due to space restrictions, inadequate cooling, and serviceability interferences.
Cooling air inlet openings tend to be smaller to complement increased flow velocities resulting in accelerated chaff plugging.
The invention disclosed herein presents a tractor vehicle that eliminates many of the prior and contemporary art deficiencies in tractors. This is done by judicious placement of the engine above or in front of the front axle and locating the heat exchanger and its fan between the engine and the tractor firewall. Displacement of the heat exchanger and the engine in this configuration leads to a multiplicity of improvements in tractors, overcoming the above deficiencies.
Several prior art tractor models include components of this invention however no assembly of components appears to have been made which is similar in all respects to the reverse flow tractor concept presented herein. A vehicle manufactured in the early 1920's by the assignee of this invention had a heat exchanger and the fan located between the engine and the operator's compartment although it did not have other characteristics important to this invention such as the engine location or the use and location of a fuel tank as an air directing member.
A perusal of farm tractor anthologies such as the 1932Cooperative Tractor Catalog published by Implement and Tractor Trade Journal would indicate several vehicles where the engine is above or in front of the front axle. Also tractors have been known where the engine has been mounted "backwards" in relation to the radiator, however no tractor vehicles are known in the prior art that have all the advantages resulting from the unique combination and placement of components that are incorporated in the instant invention.